American Visitors To Syria Challenge Western Media Bias / Propaganda

Three Americans who have visited Syria multiple times amid the ongoing civil war provided detailed briefings this month to the McClendon Group at a special dinner presentation at the National Press Club.

The speakers presented their observations about the people, the government, and the civil war in Syria that differ sharply with mainstream media accounts in Western and Gulf monarchy-controlled news media.

The presentation, “Syria: Three Personal Accounts,” was delivered on Oct. 12 to nearly 30 attendees of the McClendon Group, a speaker society that presents alternative views of important issues. It is named for the late White House correspondent Sarah McClendon

Speakers were: Virginia State Senator Richard Black, an attorney with a long military background in the U.S. Marines and the U.S. Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps; Carla Ortiz a Bolivian-born film documentary maker and film star who is a naturalized U.S. citizen; and Janice Kortkamp, an American who describes herself as a "housewife" who felt obligation to learn more about the war-torn nation.

The adjoining photo shows the three, with Ortiz on the right.

They gave first-hand reports of their experiences with the Syrian people, the Bashir al Assad government, and the civil war.

Each speaker offered a unique and deeply personal account of their on-the-ground experiences, traveling around Syria, interviewing people from all backgrounds and walks of life (including many internally displaced persons), and meeting with military and humanitarian group officials.

First to speak was Black, who has visited Syria twice since 2014. He noted that his engagement in a personal effort to bring an end to the war began with a letter he sent to President Bashir al Assad. The letter thanked Assad for the Syrian military’s defense and rescue of the Christian communities in Syria from the brutal terrorists’ torture and murders victimizing that religious community.

Black gave a long-term overview of the war in Syria. He noted that as far back as 2001 the Pentagon was planning for regime change in Syria.

Black cited for this the statements of former U.S. Army General Wesley Clark — former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SACEUR), shown at right in a file photo. During Clark's campaign for the U.S. presidency in 2004, he recalled that he had been told in confidence by a former high-level military officer of secret plans for regime change in Syria as one of governments in seven Middle East countries that were to be overthrown by a U.S.-led effort. One of Clark's widely viewed video clips of his recollection is

Black also gave details of reports of U.S. smuggling weapons from the regime change effort in Libya in 2011 to Syria directly into the hands of jihadi groups, including Al Qaeda, to overthrow President Assad.

In pursuing this war with these allies, Black said, the U.S. adopted an “empire” policy that is alien to the nation’s true interests and which is aiding the same terrorists that attacked the U.S. on 9/11.

Following him was Ortiz, an internationally known actress, producer and philanthropist. Born in Bolivia, she began her acting career at age 15.

After achieving stardom in Latin America and Hollywood, she turned to documentary filmmaking and has produced several documentaries on the plight of the victims of the Syrian war. She has spentg much of the past two years on the ground in Syria visiting some of the most devastated war zones.

She is shown with a child in Douma [aka Ghouta] in May 2018 shortly after Syrian government forces offered reconciliation deals to rebels or transported them north to rebel-held territory following years of rebel occupation of Douma and bombardment of civilian populations of nearby Damascus.

Front Lines

“I was on the front lines,” Ortiz said of several situations, including one immediately after jihadi rebel attacks.

Most of the reporting from the mainstream media is inaccurate and sometimes false, she said in describing how passage for civilians in Aleppo was guarded by the Syrian Army and the sniper attacks were coming from rebels. She was recently appointed Special Envoy to the Middle East Commissioner of the International Human Rights Commission in Geneva.

Both Ortiz, left, and the last speaker, Janice Kortkamp warned that “false flag” chemical weapons attacks blamed on the Syrian government have become an almost standard tactic by the rebels to escalate international pressure to remove Assad’s government. This is especially dangerous now as the Syrian Army is poised for victory in Idlib – the last stronghold of the Al Qaeda/rebel forces.

The voices of American citizens against the fake news about Syrian government chemical attacks are urgently needed, the speakers said, to prevent another escalation of the war.

Kortkamp, shown at right with one of her photographs that she took in Syria, is an independent writer and activist who has studied the Syria crisis extensively. She has visited Syria five times in the last two years in leading four fact-finding tours for small groups of activists, researchers and journalists. She administers the Syria Resources Archive and has been featured on One America News Network.

She has received many eyewitness accounts of the atrocities carried out by the Free Syrian Army — the U.S. backed armed opposition that is falsely called “moderate.”

Kortkamp referenced the case of a Catholic priest in Homs, Father Franz, who stayed in the city under rebel occupation, and finally was executed. But, she sees clearly that the country is being restored and she has made it a point to go the liberated areas every few months to observe the reconciliation process first hand. She has gone to Aleppo three times and seen the rebuilding of the factories. Contrary to the mainstream media, Aleppo is not “occupied” by the Syrian military, it is liberated, she said.

The moderator was Dr. Reuben Egolf, a co-founder and Chairman of the United States Global Leadership Council, an organization dedicated to the development and improvement of infrastructure through advanced business strategies and sustainable solutions. He is also chief administrator of operations of Project One, Inc., a non-government organizatio (NGO) with consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

Shown at left, he is senior pastor of Mt. Calvary Tabernacle in St. Thomas, Pennsylvania. He

Near the end of the presentations, a young woman from the audience stepped forward to speak unannounced. She described herself as a native of Syria now living in the United States working in the medical field.

Speaking passionately, she said that foreign-born "rebels" have for years controlled her hometown despite committing atrocities and being hated by the community. She said some teenagers and young women have been tied up naked to be made available for gang rapes and then dismembered as a threat to the public. 

The Syrian government of Assad has won the war, nonetheless, the speakers concurred in general, but the United States will not admit it. As a result, it is time for the U.S. to end its occupation (there are 11 bases in the Kurdish region alone), to remove the sanctions against Syria, and start building the peace.

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This account has been updated with audience input following initial publication on Oct. 13

Recent Related News

Black and Ortiz are shown in a photo by attorney and human rights advocate David Townsend.

November

Nov. 24

Strategic Culture Foundation via SouthFront, Opinion:: The Final Push for Idlib Will Come Soon, Federico Pieraccini, Nov. 24, 2018. The situation in Syria is that of a frozen conflict, following the agreements made between Russia, Turkey and Syria on the demilitarized zone created around Idlib. Except for some sporadic terrorist attacks, the truce seems to be holding up over the last few weeks, even though it has become clear to everyone what the next step is for the province.

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has been busy eradicating Daesh in the southern part of Syria in recent weeks, concentrating its efforts on securing all areas that have been liberated from terrorist control but which still remain vulnerable to sporadic attacks, as occurred in Sweida at the end of July 2018.

While Moscow supplies Damascus with new equipment in preparation for the future advance on Idlib, Putin and his entourage continue diplomatic efforts to draw more of Syria’s enemies closer to the Russia-Iran-Syria axis.

The meeting that brought about the demilitarized zone included Macron and Merkel (shown at left), the Europeans having evidently come to terms with the impossibility of overthrowing the legitimate government of Syria. Macron and Merkel were offered a way out of ut of the Syrian conflict, decoupling themselves from the belligerent stance of the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia. The intention is to usher Paris and Berlin towards the same direction Qatar, Turkey and Jordan have been progressively gravitating.'

October

Oct. 29

Presidents Angela Merkel of Germany, Vladimir Putin of Russia, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Emmanuel Macron of France (left to right) meet in Istanbul on Oct. 28, 2018 for a summit on Syria.

Strategic Culture Foundation, Analysis: Istanbul Summit on Syria Was a Success but Caveats Remain, Melkulangara Bhadrakumar (Former career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service), Oct. 29, 2018. The four-nation Turkey-Russia-Germany-France summit on Syria on October 27 in Istanbul had an impressive outcome. All participants – each with own interests – has some ‘takeaway’ from the summit, which itself is a measure of the success of the event. This is also important because the participants now have a reason to work together. Such an outcome can be interpreted in the following ways.

First and foremost, a major regional conflict impacting international security was addressed without US participation. A sign of our times?

Second, participants didn’t quarrel over President Bashar Al-Assad’s “fate.” The debate becomes pedantic today in terms of ground realities. The Syrian nation should decide on its future. That’s also been Assad’s demand.

Third, some serious thought has been given to the journey towards a Syrian settlement – ceasefire, drafting of new constitution followed by elections under UN supervision. Four, the participants snubbed the US-Israeli plan to balkanize Syria into “spheres of influence” and have also squashed the Israeli dreams of getting international legitimacy for its illegal occupation of Golan Heights as part of any settlement.

Five, Germany and France have become amenable to the Russian demand pressing the urgency for rendering humanitarian aid to Syria and help in reconstruction. (US made this conditional on Assad’s removal.) We’ll have to see how it pans out, but the summit also stressed the importance of return of Syrian refugees (which is a key issue for European countries.)

Six, the participants recognized that the remaining terrorists in Syria must be destroyed – although, significantly, they also supported the Idlib ceasefire deal brokered by Turkey and Russia.

The bottom line is that it is the post-war Syrian order that is under discussion now. Generally speaking, Russia and Turkey are in command as of now. Syria is somewhere at the top of Erdogan’s priorities. Erdogan will expect the Americans to throw their Syrian Kurdish allies under the bus. Yesterday, Turkish army bombarded Kurdish positions east of Euphrates.

Oct. 23

The Unz Review, Opinion: The White Helmets Ride Again, Philip Giraldi, Oct. 23, 2018. Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., shown at right below, is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

I am often asked to explain why countries like Iran appear to be so aggressive, involving themselves in foreign wars and seeking to create alliances that they know will provoke the worst and most paranoid responses from some of their neighbors.

My response is invariably that perceptions of threat depend very much on which side of the fence you are standing on. Saudi Arabia and Israel might well perceive Iranian actions as aggressive given the fact that all three countries are competing for dominance in the same region, but Iran, which is surrounded by powerful enemies, could equally explain its activity as defensive, seeking to create a belt of allies that can be called upon if needed if a real shooting war breaks out.

The United States and Israel are, of course, masters at seeing everything as a threat, justifying doing whatever is deemed necessary to defend against what are perceived to be enemies. They even exercise extraterritoriality, with Washington claiming a right to go after certain categories of “terrorists” in countries with which it is not at war, most particularly Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. Israel does likewise in its attacks on Lebanon and Syria. Both Tel Aviv and Washington have regularly crossed the line drawn by international legal authorities in terms of what constitutes initiating a “just” or “legal” war, i.e. an imminent threat to use force by a hostile power. Neither Israel nor the United States has really been threatened by an enemy or enemies in the past seventy years, so the definition of threat has been expanded to include after-the-fact as with 9/11 and potential as in the case of Israel and Iran.

The “which side of the fence” formulation has also had some interesting spin-offs in terms of how so-called non-state players that use violence are perceived and portrayed. Nearly all widely accepted definitions of terrorism include language that condemns the “use of politically motivated violence against non-combatants to provoke a state of terror.”

There are two notable groups that should be universally condemned as terrorists but are not for political reasons. They are the Mujaheddin e Khalq (MEK), Iranian dissidents that are based in Paris and Washington, and the so-called White Helmets who have been active in Syria. MEK is particularly liked by Israel and its friends inside the Beltway because it retains resources inside Iran that enable it to carry out assassinations and sabotage, and if it is only Iranians that are dying, that’s okay.

Perhaps the most serious charge against the White Helmets consists of the evidence that they actively participated in the atrocities, to include torture and murder, carried out by their al-Nusra hosts. There have been numerous photos of the White Helmets operating directly with armed terrorists and also celebrating over the bodies of execution victims and murdered Iraqi soldiers. The group’s jihadi associates regard the White Helmets as fellow “mujahideen” and “soldiers of the revolution.”

So, the National Holocaust Museum, which is taxpayer funded, has given an apparently prestigious award to a terrorist group, something which could have been discerned with even a little fact checking.

Oct. 21

SouthFront, Turkish-backed 'Moderate Rebel' Executes Own Sister After Finding Out Her Unmarried Affair, Staff report from social media, Oct. 21, 2018 (graphic video, 58 secs.). A member of the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) executed his own sister because she had allegedly had an unmarried affair with a Turksih officer in the Syrian city of Jarabulus, according to a video released by the pro-Turkish Syrian news agency STEP NEWS.

This incident once again revealed that real face of the so-called “democratic opposition” to the “bloody Assa regime” in Syria. Such incidents are not something uncommon for the “rebel-held” areas in northwestern Syria. However, they are often ignored by the mainstream media because they are in contrary to the maisntream narrative on the conflict.

Last time, such thing gained a wide media attention during the Aleppo battle in 2016 when Nour al-Din al-Zenki, which had received TOW missiles from the US, filmed an execution of the young boy accused of being a pro-Assad spy. Currently, Nour al-Din al-Zenki is operating in northwestern Syria as a part of the Turkish-backed “opposition force.”

Washington Post, In Syria, Trump administration takes on new goal: Iranian retreat, Missy Ryan, Paul Sonne and John Hudson, Sept. 30, 2018. The Trump administration has opened a new chapter in American involvement in Syria, vowing to remain until the civil war’s conclusion in a bid to halt Iran’s expansion across the Middle East.

The vision articulated last week by senior U.S. officials marks a dramatic reversal six months after President Trump said he would pull American troops out of Syria and end U.S. involvement in a conflict that has killed at least half a million people and confounded two administrations.

James Jeffrey, the State Department’s special representative for Syria, said the United States would maintain a presence in the country, possibly including an extended military mission, until Iran withdraws the soldiers and militia forces it commands. U.S. officials expect that possible outcome only after world powers broker a deal ending the war.

SouthFront, Analysis: Upgraded Syrian Air Defense System Will Be Fully Centralized: Russian Official, Staff report, Oct. 1, 208. The upgdraded Syrian air defense system will be centralized and controlled by one controller, according to Viktor Bondarev, the chairman of the Russian parliament’s upper house Defense and Security Committee.

Bondarev added that the united Syrian air defense system will be established after the S-300 system will be delivered to the country’s military. This, according to Bondarev, will allow to boost security of Russian troops in the war-torn country and to prevent IL-20-like incidents.

Reader Commnent: S. Melanson: There has been a lot of debate about the implications of the Russian response to the downing of the IL-20 and loss of 15 Russian personnel. This is my take on the implications.

First and foremost, the MoD [Russian Ministry of Defense] blamed Israel from day one and has provided a string of statements hostile to Israel in contrast to Putin's initial conciliatory approach. The hard line taken towards Israel has clearly prevailed with the MoD controlling the narrative with regular announcements by Shoigu, the Russian Defense Minister, on retaliatory steps. It also appears the MoD is making the determination of what retaliatory measures are to be taken.

The key retaliation measures include:

Establishment of a no-fly zone over Syria and Syrian territorial waters - applies to any hostile aircraft regardless of nationality - measures to implement the no fly zone are as follows:

• Syria gets S-300 Systems
• Syria gets additional state of the art short and medium range air defense systems
• Enhanced management systems that had only been available to the Russian military
• Centralized Russian and Syrian systems will be integrated and work together to establish no-fly zone

Implications to consider:

Clearly, we are witnessing the establishment of a formidable air defense system in Syria that presents a highly credible deterrent to would-be aggressors. The Russians are making it very clear that any aircraft that take hostile actions towards Syria do so at their own peril. Israel has stated they will continue striking Syria as before.

Conclusion: Israel and Russia are presently on a collision course and when they collide, all hell will break loose.

September

Sept. 18

Viable Opposition, Analysis: American Politicians and Syria -- What if Washington's Narrative is Wrong? Sept. 18, 2018. Recently, two American politicians have made it quite clear that they do not believe Washington's narrative on its actions in Syria.

Let's start by looking at a recent commentary by Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D -HI-02, shown at right in an official photo) from a speech she that gave on the House floor:

“Two days ago, President Trump and Vice President Pence delivered solemn speeches about the attacks on 9/11, talking about how much they care about the victims of al-Qaeda’s attack on our country. But, they are now standing up to protect the 20,000 to 40,000 al-Qaeda and other jihadist forces in Syria, and threatening Russia, Syria, and Iran, with military force if they dare attack these terrorists.

“This is a betrayal of the American people, especially the victims of al-Qaeda’s attack on 9/11 and their families, first responders, and my brothers and sisters in uniform who have been killed or wounded in action and their families. For the President, who is Commander in Chief, to act as the protective big brother of al-Qaeda and other jihadists must be condemned by every Member of Congress.”

Ms. Gabbard is not the only American politician that has been to Syria and met with President Assad. Richard Black, a Republican Senator in the Virginia State Senate has recently returned from his second visit to Syria and had a three hour-long meeting with Bashar al-Assad. Thanks to Sputnik News (one of those dreaded Russian media outlets) and Al Mayadeen, a Beirut-based television channel, he has shared his experiences with the world. He last visited Syria in April of 2016 and, should you be interested in his observations from that visit, here is the entire interview with Jeffrey Steinberg of Executive Intelligence Review:

Now, let's look at Senator Black's most recent trip to Syria. Here is a recent video of Richard Black during his visit in Syria, commenting on terrorist links in Syria and how the Syrian Army is trained to destroy terrorists while on the front lines of the civil war:

Here's a quotation:

"This is their final stand (al Nusra/al Qaeda). This is their last place in Idlib province where they have been cornered and trapped. This should be a time when people in the United States, everyone who's concerned about terrorism would be ecstatic. This is a wonderful time for us because we need revenge for what happened on 9/11. We have fought a War of Terror for ...17 years and nothing to show and yet here the Syrian Army and their allies have cornered all of the terrorists in one place and of course there are many civilians that have been trapped. They are used as human shields by the terrorists so we have to liberate them. The Syrian Army is very careful to limit civilian casualties.

I've looked at the figures; civilian casualties are remarkably low considering the fact that we're in urban combat....it's a very brutal type of combat...We have tens of thousands of terrorists who hold this last refuge, this last place and they have to be destroyed. It's for the Syrian Army to destroy them and at the same time to try to protect the civilians as much as possible. They're trying to get the civilians out through humanitarian corridors, actually thousands of them have already gotten out. I'm sure many more want to get out."

What if Senator Black is right and the anti-Assad Washington-based narrative is wrong?

According to an interview on Al Mayadeen which has been overdubbed into Arabic, Senator Black claims that Britain's MI6 intelligence service is planning a chemical attack on Syria's civilian population in the Idlib region which would then be blamed on Assad.

Let's look at a recent ORB International opinion poll that was taken in Syria. In the most recent poll taken in March 2018 , over half of Syrians (52 percent) believed that Assad will win the conflict, up from 42 percent in the prior year. According to Global Research, in 2014 Bashar al-Assad's popularity was baffling, with many Syrians regarding his leadership as not firm enough (unlike his father's), leading to the nickname "Mr. Soft Heart."

Sept. 15

The Grayzone Project, The Syria Deception: Al Qaeda Goes to Hollywood, Sept. 15, 2018. Film by Dan Cohen; music by Jackson Blumenthal. This exclusive Grayzone investigative mini-doc by Dan Cohen exposes the cynical deceptions and faux humanitarianism behind the campaign to sell the dirty war on Syria.

It will demonstrate the lengths that the US and its allies have gone to develop new ploys to tug at Western heartstrings and convince even liberal minded skeptics of war that a US intervention was necessary — even if it meant empowering Al Qaeda’s largest franchise since 9/11 and its theocratic allies among the insurgency. Big lies and little children have formed the heart of what is perhaps the most expensive, sophisticated, and shameless propaganda blitz ever conducted. Welcome to "The Syria Deception."

Moon of Alabama, Opinion: The Dike Breaks -- Netherland Ends Support For "White Helmets" Terrorist Propaganda, B, Sept. 15, 2018. The Netherlands just announced that it is ending its support for al-Qaeda's propaganda gang, the "White Helmets. It also ends its support for the so called Free Syrian Police.

Last week the Netherlands shut down its "non-lethal" support for the Free Syrian Army after Dutch news organizations found that members of these groups were accused of terrorism by their General Prosecutor.

According to the Volkskrant daily (in Dutch), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ended the support for the White Helmets after its Directorate for International Research and Policy Evaluation issued a critical report about them. For the White Helmets, which had received €12.5 million from the Dutch government, it lists the following issues:

The seemingly intentional lack of transparency practically guarantees that much of the more than $150 million the White Helmets received from various governments will have flown into the private pockets of the people who organize the scam.

This blog published several pieces about the White Helmets, mostly pointing out their obviously faked media productions:

• The U.S./UK Financed "White Helmets" Shtick: Fake "Child Rescued" Videos, June 1, 2016
• "Dramatic Rescue! Man With Kid Runs Towards Camera!": 44 Staged Pictures, June 21, 2016

May 21

April 21

2017

2016

Oct. 10

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad meets soldiers (SANA Photo)

SouthFront, Associated Press Was Forced to Delete Propaganda Post that ‘Assad Forces’ Not Fighting ISIS, Staff report, Oct. 10, 2016. The Associated Press (a US multinational “nonprofit” news agency headquartered in New York City) was forced to delete a propaganda post, arguing that the Syrian government is not fighting the ISIS terrorist group. On October 9, the agency posted an “AP Fact Check” post about the recent Trump-Hillary debates.

Strategic Culture Foundation, Did I Say That? State Department Official Admits Ties to Terrorist Groups, Mike Whitney, Oct. 7, 2016. The United States is on the wrong side in the Syrian war. The U.S. is on the side of al Qaida, the terrorist organization that killed 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001. Jabhat al Nusra, which is the name of al Qaida’s branch in Syria, is the most powerful and effective militia currently fighting against the Syrian government.

Al Nusra is not comprised of “moderates” that are fighting for democracy, civil liberties or human rights. They are Islamic extremists that want to remove the secular government of Syrian President Bashar al Assad and replace it with an Islamic caliphate that will ruthlessly enforce Sharia law. The bulk of al Nusra’s foot-soldiers are not Syrian nationals, but foreign-born militants recruited by the various Intelligence agencies (US, Turkish, Saudi and Qatar) from around the world.

A large portion of these fighters have been armed, trained and funded by these same intel agencies. Whether al Nusra gets its marching orders directly from Langley, Riyadh or Ankara, is a matter of considerable debate. (I, personally, don’t think they do.) But it is also completely irrelevant.

What’s more important is that these terrorist organizations are mainly the invention of the western intel agencies that use jihadists to advance their own geopolitical agendas in places like Afghanistan, Kosovo, Chechnya, Libya, Somalia etc. Absent state support, these gangs of cutthroats would likely wither and vanish in a matter of months.

Oct. 7

Middle East Eye, Obama’s Syria policy and the illusion of US power in the Middle East, Gareth Porter, Oct. 7, 2016. One of Obama's biggest failures is letting his policy in Syria be determined primarily by the ambitions of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. With the collapse of the US-Russian ceasefire agreement and the resumption and escalation of the massive Russian bombing campaign in Aleppo, the frustration of hawks in Washington over the failure of the Obama administration to use American military power in Syria has risen to new heights.

But the administration’s inability to do anything about Russian military escalation in Aleppo is the logical result of the role the Obama administration has been playing in Syria over the past five years. The problem is that the administration has pursued policy objectives that it lacked the means to achieve. That strategy was upended when the Russians intervened forcefully in September 2015.

Obama, who was firmly committed to avoiding any direct conflict with Russia over Syria, vetoed any threat to use force in Syria in response to the Russian intervention. US complicity in the hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Syrian War, and now in the massive civilian casualties in the Russian bombing of Aleppo, does not consist in its refusal to go to war in Syria but in its providing the political-diplomatic cover for the buildup of the al-Nusra Front and its larger interlocking system of military commands. A US administration that played a true superpower role would have told its allies not to start a war in Syria by arming jihadists, using the fundamentals of the alliance as the leverage.

Oct. 4

SouthFront, Russian Aircraft Carry Out Airstrikes in Syria: Hundreds of Terrorists Killed, Staff report, Oct. 4, 2016. Several airstrikes have been carried out by Russian fighter jets in provinces of Aleppo, Idlib, Hama and Homs. As result, hundreds of terrorists have been killed and their military hardware has been destroyed. The Russian Aerospace Forces are carrying out airstrikes on terrorists, while the Syrian Army is advancing in Aleppo, killing terrorists and their commanders, the Russkaya Vesna information website reported, citing its own military source.

Over the past day, about 200 terrorists have been killed and more than 250 others have been wounded, while 32 pickup trucks, armed with heavy machine guns, and 20 pieces of other military hardware of terrorists have been destroyed, as a result of precision airstrikes of Russian fighter jets on positions of the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (previously known as the Al-Nusra Front or the Jabhat al-Nusra) terrorist group in the provinces of Aleppo, Idlib, Hama and Homs.

Sept. 29

ConsortiumNews.com, How the US Armed-up Syrian Jihadists, Alastair Crooke with Jack Murphy, Sept. 29, 2016. The West blames Russia for the bloody mess in Syria, but U.S. Special Forces saw close up how the chaotic U.S. policy of aiding Syrian jihadists enabled Al Qaeda and ISIS to rip Syria apart, explains ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke.

In a detailed report, US Special Forces Sabotage White House Policy gone Disastrously Wrong with Covert Ops in Syria, Jack Murphy, himself a former Green Beret (U.S. Special Forces), recounts a former CIA officer having told him how the “the Syria covert action program is [CIA Director John] Brennan’s baby …Brennan was the one who breathed life into the Syrian Task Force … John Brennan loved that regime-change bullshit.”

The pro-government forces control the air and with their combined air and land attacks they could crush rebels in Aleppo by year-end if not before U.S. elections in November.

Sept. 18

SouthFront, Syrian Army Seizes Most of Turdah Mountain from ISIS despite US Air Strikes against Government Forces, Staff report, Sept. 18, 2016 (typo-corrected). The Syrian army and the National Defense Forces, supported by the Russian Aerospace Forces, have seized the most of Turdah mountain south of the strategic city of Deir Ezzor from the ISIS terrorist group. The pro-government forces were able to do this despite ‘accidental’ air strikes of the US-led coalition air power against the Syrian army in the area.

The US-led air power’s actions resulted in significant casualties among the Syrian army: 62 soldiers were killed and about 100 injured. The Pentagon denied that the air strikes were aimed on the Syrian army. However, some experts suggest that this was not be a common mistake.

According to pro-government sources, some 1,000 soldiers of the Syrian Republican Guard (an elite formation of the Syrian army) had arrived Deir Ezzor in order to support operations against ISIS in the area prior to the US-led air strikes.